The Mauryan Polity c8.s2.t4.8

c8.s2.t4.8

These assemblies again were entrusted with responsible executive work. A story¹ goes that once Tiṣyarakṣitā, the queen of Aśoka, made overtures of love to Kunāla, the son of Aśoka by another wife. Kunāla’s righteous nature rebelled at the very idea. This drove Tiṣyarakṣitā to severe wrath and she resolved to punish him at the next available opportunity. Aśoka fell ill and Tiṣyarakṣitā attended on him carefully that the king promised to do her anything she wanted. Her request was that she should be at the helm of the empire for a week. It was agreed upon. The queen sent an order sealed, as if from the king, to the Paura-Jānapada at Takṣaśila to get Kunāla, the provincial governor of that city, blinded. The members of the assembly met and discussed the unpleasant duty which had fallen on their shoulders. They informed the prince of the royal orders, to which he readily consented. The assembly got him blinded. The rest of the story is not relevant to our purpose. The story may or may not be true. What we are concerned with here is the administrative detail thrown out by the story. The Paura-Jānapada enjoyed executive powers amounting to punishing even the provincial heads of the empire. It would be idle to deny the existence of such institutions or to underrate the nature of the onerous work which fell to their lot.